Blood Runners: Box Set

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  The angle jumped, the person recording the images obviously spooked and on the run, as the image abruptly cut to the dead boy staring at the screen (directly at Elias) and whispering.

  Elias ticked up the volume and heard the boy say, “There’s a way out. I found it. A path out beneath the wall and to the lands that lie beyond. There’s nothing to fear if you know where to look. Everything they tell us is a lie.”

  A sound caused Elias to shove the phone down his leg as he wheeled to see his roommates jabbering, preparing to enter the quarters as he turned off the phone and dropped it into a pocket.

  He wondered what the boy meant, and what the key was for, and why the man who’d led the city out of its darkest days was involved in so much horrific bloodshed.

  11

  Farrow couldn’t believe he had to step in and pull Marisol out of trouble again. He loved her like a daughter, but she seemed to be skirting the rules of late. This time, she had been late from her run and he had to step in to save her from the wrath of Teddy Brusker, one of the brooding commandants who ran the barracks and reported directly to Longman.

  Farrow trekked outside, beyond the barracks, searching for her. He climbed up onto a collection of discarded truck tires and scanned the horizon. Just like he’d done before when he was searching for Ellie, his daughter. He’d had a family once, though it had been so long ago, it almost didn’t seem real.

  For a moment Farrow’s mind wandered and he was back in Baltimore. He remembered the terrifying escape from it, from Federal Hill, the neighborhood he’d lived in. The drive down over twisting streets in the pre-dawn hours, mere moments before the gangs overran everything and put the city to the torch.

  He remembered how he and his wife and young daughter had run the National Guard blockades near Frederick and Hagerstown in Maryland, heading for Ohio. They’d hoped to escape the violence, but it followed them.

  Farrow recalled how he’d been scavenging medicine for Ellie in some backwards town in West Virginia when they were taken from him. How long had he left her and his wife Jane in the car? Ten minutes? Twelve? The same feeling of utter helplessness he’d felt when he found they were gone suddenly came over him. He struggled to remember what came next, what he’d done after discovering that his family was gone. Oh, the things he witnessed in the days after their disappearance. Things that once seen could never be unseen. He became unhinged, an avenging angel. He’d done things that it pained him to even think about. His pulse race and he shrugged off the thoughts upon seeing Marisol, loping toward him.

  “What the hell, girl?!” Farrow said, exhaling deeply, moving toward her, taking her aside. “What the hell were you thinking?!”

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” was all she could offer in return.

  “What were you doing out there?”

  She dipped her head and then tossed Farrow a quick look. “There were so many things to see. I was down past the river and I – I lost track of time… lost my way.”

  Farrow shook his head, frowning, “I don’t buy that. Not for one minute. You can’t lose your way. It’s genetically impossible. You’re like a bloodhound for Crissakes.”

  She bit her lip and said, “What’s a bloodhound?” as Farrow mussed her hair, his anger melting away.

  “Never mind,” he said, slapping her shoulder, and then, “What’s out there is gone now, okay? Forget about it. It’s the way it was. The only thing that matters is the right here and now. The way it is.”

  He took a few steps away and then she said, “Why?” and he paused and turned, for this was the first time Marisol had ever asked him why. “Why is it that way? Why do we have to forget about the way it was?”

  “What’s gotten into you, girl?”

  “Nothing, it’s just ... is there something wrong with wanting to know more?”

  He mad-dogged her, buying time, rummaging for just the right words and then he simply growled, “Okay, alright. You want to know why? You really do? Because I say so. Because that’s the way it has to be right now, that’s goddamn why.”

  Marisol scowled and took a look to the ground as she pushed past him. He knew she was pissed and he almost called after her, but then he let her go. For all he cared about her, she wasn’t blood.

  True, she reminded him of his daughter, but she wasn’t really his. His real daughter had been stolen away from him, never to be seen again. At the end of the day, Marisol was just another Ape.

  The man known as Mister Hendrix was perpetually unshaven, junkyard filthy, and resembled a greyhound, with long, lithe legs that looked built for speed. He sported tweed trousers and iron-tipped boots and carried a metal attaché case pilfered from some hedge-fund guy he’d shot in the back under a subway trestle two days after it all went bad.

  Like many in Longman’s unholy entourage, Hendrix embraced his dark side in the days shortly after the Unraveling. Unlike some of the others, his was corruption by choice, driven principally by a latent talent for hunting and killing that announced itself as soon as the world broke.

  Most of those he’d put down in the days after “The Great Shat,” as he called it, deserved it, but the first few he’d dropped with blade and bullet just to see if he could do it. He’d had terrifying visions and dreams of running amok in the days before, but was unable to act on any of his more demonic impulses because of the law and societal pressures and the legion of pills he took from various mental health practitioners to keep his demons in check.

  The Unraveling had been the opportunity of a lifetime for someone as twisted as Hendrix, and he’d fully embraced it, immediately going off his meds, and gathering up weapons and blackening his face and setting off at night to kill and take trophies from his targets. In the quiet times when he reflected, Hendrix remembered the Chinese maxim of “original sin.” That is, there was no one of any measure who had not gotten to where they were without committing some dark act. He was like this, he felt — someone truly coming into his own, though it was indisputable that he’d done more evil than most.

  His days of killing were mostly over now, and Hendrix functioned in his current capacity as an Absolution investigator for Longman.

  Inside the attaché case were the tools of his trade. A half-broken digital camera wrapped in duct tape, a magnifying glass, a set of steel tweezers, a foldable knife, parchment, a small bottle of baby powder (for testing prints) and a pen to scrawl an image of the death scene and a piece of chalk to outline where the body fell. He could’ve taken a picture of the whole thing, but Longman preferred hard copies of such things.

  Hendrix bent beside the boy shot dead by Cozzard and Lout and tossed his pockets and catalogued every object and piece of pocket litter found inside.

  Flipping the boy’s wrist over, Hendrix gazed at the tattooed numbers that all of the citizens of New Chicago now bore. He matched the numbers up to those on a paper list and mused that the deceased was the ne’er-do-well son of a well-respected member of an upper Guild.

  He recognized this boy now, his name was Caleb … Caleb Lavey.

  His father controlled trade on the river and owed all that he had to Longman. Caleb’s father had no other sons, but a bevy of fine-looking daughters borne by several women. He thought that with daughters like that, the old man wouldn’t miss Caleb. Not really.

  Hendrix smiled, for he knew that Caleb’s death would not be connected to Longman. To conceal the truth and obscure the facts, Longman would disseminate fake stories, faux news that was distributed by word of mouth via his spies or vis-à-vis the newspapers that he printed and handed out like candy in the slums. The evidence would be distorted and made so confusing that nobody would ever be able to discern what had really happened. All anyone would know was that a person of means had been murdered and that it was time for another round of Absolution.

  Longman would have Moses O’Shea to offer up the Runner and then the Apes would gun the Runner down and the blood money (what Hendrix personally liked to call a “Death Gratuity”) would be paid to Ca
leb’s family and all would then be right with the world. That’s all anyone including the other members of the Guild wanted. To make sure that if the life of a person of means was lost, another would be offered up in sacrifice for it. That’s how people were placated.

  Flesh for flesh.

  Blood for blood.

  Hendrix recorded all the relevant information and placed it inside his case and then turned to two broad-shouldered workers who jimmied dowels under Caleb’s body and hoisted the boy up into a long burlap sack. He would be shown to his father and then incinerated and his ashes spread, like those of everyone else, over the source of “The White”: poppies at what was once called Soldier Field.

  Hendrix was partially responsible for “The White,” as it was called (even though, amusingly enough, it was light brown in color). He’d been a soldier and a part-time chemist, a promising drummer in a punk band called “Failure To Thrive” and a lover of drugs and violence and vice back when the world was real.

  An addict since the time he was twenty, Hendrix sobered up in the years after his murderous rampage and the Unraveling when the supply of drugs and other goodies slowed to a trickle. He carried seeds with him, however. Poppy seeds he’d gathered in a nameless war fought overseas and then secured in a rucksack that he carried in a larger bag when he set out after the initial riots began.

  He spent many years in the wilderness, half-mad, living off of what he could grow or source or steal from anyone unlucky enough to make his acquaintance. One of Longman’s sycophants shot him in the ass when he tried to steal a jug of lamp oil from a truck and the only thing that had saved his life was when he showed Longman those seeds. Longman knew what they were, what they meant and the possibilities in it for him. Hendrix lied and told Longman that he knew how to plant and grow the seeds. The lie saved Hendrix’s hide and quickly after Longman’s forces took over New Chicago, Hendrix was made to grow those seeds in the fertile soil of Soldier Field. The weather was unforgiving, but modifications were made and soon the crop took hold and blossomed into a beautiful batch that was cured and pressed and used as currency to buy and sell and snort and inject and generally partake of.

  Various Guilds controlled trade in New Chicago, some overseeing it on the river, others in the outer boroughs where much of the vegetables and fruit, herds of lower animals, and valuable timber was grown and cultivated. The Birken, Kratzos, Millios, and Occidio Guilds controlled the more rural areas.

  In the city, the Hammurabi, Sagan, and Locksley Guilds controlled smithing and mongering, and the foundries where fires were stoked and metal bent, and brick manufactured from the river sludge to use in buildings. These various goods would be brought to market and paid in kind with other goods or ounces of the powder, which was disbursed to workers and the lower castes to keep them numb. The population of New Chicago was perhaps twelve-thousand, and more than half of those were addicted to the White. Longman controlled all of it — all of the trade in drugs.

  Funny thing was, Hendrix rarely used drugs. Same with Longman. They were too busy making plans and disposing of those who stood in their way. After several years, the crop was self-sustaining and Longman moved Hendrix into a position as lead investigator as he resurrected Absolution to deal with the growing problem of crime, lawlessness, and inter- and intra-Guild disputes.

  Hendrix knew most of the hunts were rigged and utter bullshit, but it gave Longman’s system a veneer of legitimacy, and sometimes that was all that mattered. He snapped closed his case and thinking it might be a special occasion, hoovered up a tiny bump of The White, then made his way to a waiting car to deliver the news to Longman and begin preparations for another round of Absolution.

  12

  This is how the hunt always began.

  Hendrix arrived back at the Guild offices and moved briskly up fourteen flights of stairs, elevators being, like morality or good manners, an extravagance in the days after the Unraveling. He drifted down guarded corridors and entered a bullpen brimming with men and women who formed the small teams that functioned solely as cogs in the Absolution machine.

  Hendrix sat at his desk and filled out forms detailing all of the pertinent facts from the death scene as his assistant, Michael, hefted thick folders on prior hunts, along with photos of potential Apes to use.

  Michael showed Hendrix how much blood money had been paid in prior sessions and Hendrix did quick calculations, taking into consideration the dead boy’s family, the Guild, in order to ascertain how much he was worth. He reached a number. The boy was worth at least ten thousand dollars in old money, or several kilos of White. An impressive sum. One of the largest amounts of blood money offered in recent memory. Longman would not be pleased. Hendrix circled the number as Michael held up the photos of the Apes and Hendrix smiled broadly as he was immediately drawn to a photo of Marisol, which he pointed to. He’d never really noticed her before.

  “You friggin’ kidding me? Some… girl?” Hendrix tittered at Marisol’s photo. “Goddamn chicklet doesn’t look old enough to sell me cookies.”

  Michael did not return Hendrix’s smile. “She’s the best there is. A tracker. She leads the older ones now.”

  “That so?” Michael nodded as Hendrix squinted, attracted to the girl certainly, but also cognizant of the impressive list of kills and half-kills attributed to her.

  “She’s never been on a hunt that didn’t end successfully, Mister Hendrix.”

  Hendrix nodded. Just what he wanted to hear. He signed off on the paperwork, and neatly folded it three times, then pulled a mighty iron stamp with Longman’s seal from his desk. He used a lighter to fire up a wedge of red wax and then he pressed the seal in the wax and stamped the Absolution papers and handed them to Michael for processing.

  Michael took a step and Hendrix lashed out and grabbed his wrist. “Who’s gonna run?”

  Michael shook his head. “I don’t — I mean, you know that the decision on who—”

  “You tell that bastard O’Shea that I want someone green, okay? I don’t want anyone to know, but I want a first-timer on this one. One of the young runners. Some wet-behind-the-ears punk that can be cut down quickly. Some sweet-pea.”

  Michael nodded uneasily and then hustled off through the bullpen as Hendrix leaned back and smirked. The game was afoot and he wanted to make damn certain that blood was quickly spilled.

  13

  Elias furiously pumped his arms as he crawled up what seemed like the side of mountain, a climbing board forty-feet high that was secured to tall wooden poles on the east side of the Pits. Sweat riveted his brow and muscles as he climbed all the way to the top, secured in place with nylon ropes that hung like entrails from the poles, protecting him in the event of a fall.

  “You’re talented, boy.” Elias peered down over a shoulder to see Moses standing and watching him, arms folded across his thick chest.

  “Thing is, it’s easy to make that climb with a safety net.”

  “What do you mean?” Elias asked and Moses grinned. “Oh, I think you know.”

  Elias looked to the ropes that were fastened with rusty clips to the harness pack he wore. He sucked in a gulp of air and knotted his brow and then he undid those clips and spidered down the face of the climbing board freestyle. With a deep breath, he dropped the final ten feet, coming down low and rising on his haunches at the feet of Moses.

  The man actually clapped, then said, “I only meet with my runners when I got good news.”

  Elias stood ramrod straight. “What is it?”

  “You’re up,” said Moses, a twinkle in his eyes.

  Elias froze; a pulse of energy, equal parts fear and excitement, snaked up through his body. “You mean … me?”

  “Yes, you, kiddo!” Moses replied, throwing some mock punches. “They damn near specifically asked for you. I mean, don’t tell anyone, ‘cause people think there’s this deep, dark lottery, but the Brahmin, the mighty men, the council who’re in charge, know who they want, and they asked me for you. You’re runni
ng for me in the next hunt. The next session of Absolution. You’re gonna run the ‘Harrowing.’”

  Elias nodded, “When?”

  “One day from today,” Moses said. “Time enough to get your stuff squared, m’man. You feel me? Y’know what I’m saying?” Elias had absolutely no idea what Moses was saying, but he rarely was slapped or verbally abused for nodding, and so he nodded as Moses clapped his shoulders. “You’re going to do just fine, Boy”

  Moses spun to exit as Elias called after him.

  “Elias.”

  Moses stopped and turned and replied, “Come again?”

  “Remember what I said before? My name’s Elias.”

  Moses grinned and tipped his head. “Elias it is,” he said, and then he paused, and for some strange reason asked, “You got kin, Elias?”

  “I did. Before. You?”

  Moses nodded.

  “I had a woman and a little boy.”

  “Where are they?” Elias asked.

  “Where did everyone go after the lights went out, Elias?”

  “Away.”

  “Away and gone, that’s what my sister used to say,” Moses said, nodding.

  “Are they long gone?”

  Moses nodded, his eyes red-rimmed for a beat. “So far gone I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get them back.”

  They shared a moment, and then Moses whispered, “In the old days, I think we would’a been boys, you know what I’m saying? Me and you. Dawgs. I got that feeling, y’know? But now the only thing we got in common is an enemy. Kinda messed up, ain’t it, Elias?”

  Elias didn’t know how to unravel what Moses had just said, and so he nodded yet again as the black man whispered, “Good boy” and pivoted and moved back inside the outer ring of the pits, smiling as he went. The kid most definitely had stones, Moses thought. God knows he would need them.